Univ. of Southern California Team Page
THIS WEEK - The No. 2 USC men's tennis team is 9-0 overall and carrying a win streak of 17 straight victories dating back to last year's run to the 2012 NCAA Championship. Winners of the 2012 ITA National Team Indoor Championship, the Trojans set up their defense of that title with a trip to Seattle for the 2013 edition of the national tourney. Seeded No. 2 for this year's competition, USC will open up against No. 15 Texas A&M on Friday (Feb. 15) in the Round of 16. A win there would put the Trojans up against either No. 7 seed Kentucky or No. 10 Mississippi State in the quarterfinals on Saturday (Feb. 16). The semifinals are set for Sunday (Feb. 17) and the title match will be held Monday (Feb. 18).
ITA RANKING UPDATES
The USC men opened the season slotted as the No. 2 team in the nation after the Trojans made history with four consecutive NCAA team championships. Still ranked No. 2 in the latest ITA national team poll (released Feb. 5), the Trojans also boast more than a full lineup of Trojans on the ITA singles list (released Feb. 12). A whopping eight Trojans are locked into the rankings, led by junior Emilio Gomez at No. 10 and junior All-American Ray Sarmiento at No. 12. Sophomore All-American Roberto Quiroz is next in line at No. 23, followed by sophomore Eric Johnson who has moved up to No. 46. Sophomore Yannick Hanfmann, too, has a top-100 spot, as the clincher of the 2012 NCAA Championship holds down No. 94. Freshman Max de Vroome clocks in at No. 109, with junior Michael Grant at No. 117 sophomore Jonny Wang at No. 118.
INSIDE THE INDOOR
The ITA National Team Indoor Championships features the winning teams out of the 15 different ITA Kick-Off Weekend competitions, held in late January, along with host Washington for a 16-team bracket of the nation's best. The top eight seeds in the draw are: No. 2 Virginia, No. 2 USC, No. 3 UCLA, No. 4 Ohio State, No. 5 Pepperdine, No. 6 Georgia, No. 7 Kentucky and No. 8 Oklahoma. The rest of the field is seeded out as: No. 9 Duke, No. 10 Mississippi State, No. 11 Florida, No. 12 Ole Miss, No. 13 California, No. 14 Tennessee, No. 15 Texas A&M and No. 16 Washington. USC enters this year's tourney as the defending champion, with its previous best recent finishes at the National Indoors having been semifinal appearances in 2002 and 1993. USC also won the title in 1988.
THIS TIME LAST YEAR
The Trojans held the top seed for the 2012 ITA National Team Indoor Championships this week, carrying a 26-match winning streak that spanned back to the 2011 Indoor Championships, where the Trojans took their only two losses of 2011. The 2012 Trojan campaign saw USC open with 4-0 shutouts of Tennessee and Duke to set up a semifinal with Georgia. USC beat the Bulldogs 4-1 to advance to the ITA National Indoor title match, where the Trojans edged out Ohio State 4-3 with the clinching victory coming from then-freshman Yannick Hanfmann. It was USC's first Indoor title since 1988.
LAST WEEK
USC tacked up two more solid wins last week in taking down two top-20 teams that the Trojans will face again later in the year during Pac-12 competition. First, USC defeated its highest-ranked opponent of the season, taking down No. 13 California with a sweep clinched by Roberto Quiroz. The USC sophomore would provide clinching power the next day, as well, with another straight-set win to secure victory over No. 19 Stanford. USC would surrender just one singles loss in the match to post a 6-1 win over the Cardinal and claim the Trojans' ninth win of the year.
PLENTY OF PAC-12 PUNCH
Just three weeks into the fall season, USC had two Pac-12 Player of the Week winners the books. Junior Emilio Gomez opened up the honor roll for the Trojans with his second career pick on Jan. 29. Gomez held down the No. 1 singles position with precision as the USC men made a winning run as host of the ITA Kick-Off Weekend. Gomez won in straight sets in both his singles matches, lifting USC to 3-0 leads against both San Diego State and Fresno State. He was similarly strong in the doubles realm, teaming up with Eric Johnson in the ITA Kick-Off final for an 8-1 victory that sparked USC's winning run in the match so qualify the Trojans for the ITA National Team Indoor Championships. Freshman Max de Vroome would make it back-to-back USC wins as he picked up his first career Pac-12 Player of the Week award after extending his win streaks in singles and doubles with solid victories in USC's five matches in a six-day period. De Vroome continued his success with teammate Roberto Quiroz in pounding out five straight doubles wins last week. In singles, de Vroome also added five more wins to hold seven in a row thanks to his five straight-set wins on the singles courts. De Vroome had the clinching wins in both USC victories in a doubleheader against Cal Poly and UC Irvine early in the week, and would go on to wrap up a winning week with his victories against Texas, San Francisco and LMU as the week progressed.
KICK-OFF POWER
USC endured plenty of adjustments to changing weather patterns in Los Angeles and came away with two 4-0 sweeps of opponents at the ITA Kick-Off Weekend. On the first day, teams moved indoors to courts in Riverside in order to stay on schedule. There, the Trojans posted a clean sheet against No. 66 San Diego State in winning doubles and then tacking up three straight-set singles wins, with the clincher coming from #121 sophomore Jonny Wang at the No. 4 spot. The next day, USC played out the ITA Kick-Off final against No. 69 Fresno State on three courts at Marks Stadium. Thanks to Max de Vroome and Roberto Quiroz' tiebreaker win on court one, USC squeaked out the doubles point. Emilio Gomez and Jonny Wang had given USC the advantage with an 8-1 win at the No. 2 position, but USC lost at No. 3. In singles, though, the Trojans showed fewer signs of slacking. De Vroome and Gomez both streaked ahead to victory, and then Quiroz wrapped up the weekend with the clincher on court three to keep USC a perfect 2-0 in the early goings of 2013.
STRENGTH AT SHERWOOD
The winner of last year's Sherwood Collegiate Cup doubles championship, Ray Sarmiento added a singles title to his resume thanks to a series of wins over UCLA opponents in this 2013 edition of the individual tourney in Thousand Oaks, Calif, last weekend. Sarmiento raged through straight sets throughout his singles draw until the final, where the junior lost the first before making his comeback win to beat UCLA's Adrien Puget in the title match. USC also had a spot in the doubles final, but Trojans Emilio Gomez and Eric Johnson were upended in the final by third-seeded Bruin pair Giron/Novikov. The Trojans had eight players on the docket in singles and four doubles teams in the mix for USC's first competition of 2013. Four Trojan sophomores -- Sarmiento, Roberto Quiroz, Yannick Hanfmann and Johnson -- reached the singles quarterfinals, but only Sarmiento emerged from that group as he set his course toward the championship. So, too did the Trojan pack four teams into the doubles quarterfinal round, with all but one notching wins to move into the semifinals. That set up an all-Trojan semi between Gomez /Johnson and Hanfmann/Sarmiento to guarantee a USC team in the final. Gomez/Johnson would advance to the title match to take on No. 3 seeded Bruins Giron/Novikov, who had edged out Trojans de Vroome/Quiroz in their semifinal collision. Gomez/Johnson took the Bruins down to the wire, but fell 8-7 (4) in the doubles final.
A GOOD DAY ON CLAY
USC sophomore Roberto Quiroz showed his singles strength in the fall in cruising to the crown at the USTA Clay Court Invitational in Orlando, Fla., topping off his trip with a 6-1, 6-3 championship win over his opponent from Duke. He also reached the doubles semifinals with teammate Yannick Hanfmann. The Florida tournament consisted of several draws of singles and doubles competition. The Trojans had a strong group in the Gold Draw, led by eventual champ Quiroz. Sophomore Hanfmann worked his way to the semifinals in the draw, falling to Quiroz' title match opponent Michael Redlicki. Freshman Max de Vroome and sophomore Jonny Wang fell in the first round. Quiroz and Hanfmann both opened their runs with straight-set victories. Quiroz would keep that streak alive as he rolled to the title, which Hanfmann was upended in the semis.
BAY WATCH
Trojan tennis reigned supreme at the Battle in the Bay Classic in San Francisco during the fall with a sweep of singles and doubles titles. The big winner in the Bay Area was USC sophomore Eric Johnson, who stormed to the singles crown with a dramatic three-set win over his freshman teammate Max de Vroome. Johnson also hoisted the doubles trophy with teammate Yannick Hanfmann after a successful run through the doubles draw. Fourth-seeded Eric Johnson posted straight-set wins in his first three matches en route to today's semifinals. There he dispatched a San Diego foe to take a spot in the singles final against teammate de Vroome. The two Trojans tangled through three sets before Johnson grabbed the third-set tiebreaker for a 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 win that earned the sophomore the singles crown. De Vroome took the spot in the title match with another all-Trojan face-off in the semifinal, where the freshman faced sophomore Jonny Wang, who had also made a strong run through the singles draw. In doubles, Wang and de Vroome had paired up but taken an early tight loss in the first round. Their Trojan cohorts Johnson and Yannick Hanfmann, meanwhile, pinned up two powerful wins to move into the semifinals. There, sophomores Hanfmann and Johnson gutted out a 9-8 (1) win over a pair from Pacific to earn a place in the final. Hanfmann/Johnson went up against a duo from Stanford in the championship bout, taking out the Cardinal with an 8-4 decision to claim the title and spark an all-out winning day for sophomore Johnson.
LAST SEASON
In 2012, USC seniors Steve Johnson and Daniel Nguyen helped anchor the Trojans to a historic run of four consecutive NCAA championships. Johnson finished his Trojan career as arguably the most successful collegiate player in history, having claimed back-to-back NCAA Singles Championships and closing out 2012 on a 72-match singles winning streak. Led by head coach Peter Smith, the 2012 Trojans lost just one match during the regular season, rebounding strong to win the first Pac-12 Tournament Championship and rolling on to successfully defend its previous three NCAA titles, taking its fourth in a row to finish 33-1 overall on the year. Top-seeded USC won a heart-stopping championship match against No. 3 seed Virginia, with the clincher in the 4-3 win coming from freshman Yannick Hanfmann in a third-set tiebreaker. With the 2012 title, USC became the first team since Stanford's 1995-98 teams to win four consecutive national championships. At the end of the year, Johnson had earned his seventh career ITA All-American nods, joined by freshman Roberto Quiroz and sophomore Ray Sarmiento with All-American status in 2012.
